Youth bass tournament unofficial rules.

Here are some rules for our tournament that i thought of. Anyone who is interested in the tournament please let me know what you think and if you would like to make changes. If anyone wants things changed, we will have to vote by majority. Thank you.
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here are a set of rules that i can think of right off the top of my head.

1- All fish caught must be wisconsin legal size of 14 inches and must be largemouth or smallmouth bass.
2-The limit will be 3 fish per person. If you go over the limit, you are disqualified for the day.
3- All fish must be weighed in alive. we will not weigh dead fish and each dead fish will be 1 fish off the total catch per person breaking the rule. The fish we will be disqualifying will be the biggest fish of the bag.
4-If you are fishing with a friend in their boat, your 3 fish must be kept seperate in a different container from there fish. Please use a big enough container to hold 3 fish and change water often! An aerorater should be bought prior to the tournament but if you choose not to buy one, that is your problem!
5- be at the launch 20 minutes early for check up. we will launch at 8:00 AM ( don’t know official time yet of course, might be earlier, or later, who knows?) Please be at the weigh in on time…weigh in will be at blank_o’ clock (don’t know yet) if you are more than 15 minutes late for the weigh in, you will lose the biggest fish from your catch for the day.
Tournament fee will 10$ (??)
Anglers are allowed to fish on any part of the mississippi River and backwater lakes. Water that you can get into without pulling the boat out of the water and back in, counts as mississippi River and backwater lakes.

***Please remember, although there is money on the line, this tournament is just for fun, and whoever wins, wins and we only hope that the non winning conestants pick themselves up to try again next time! Have fun and stay safe. If there is unsafe weather or water conditions, we will postpone this tournament!
Have fun!

Open to any suggestions. Thank you!

about the dead fish rule you are taking off another fish for the already dead fish? and that is the biggest bass of your stringer that would leave you with one bass. left. I think that if you come into the weigh in and one of your fish is dead or dieing that should be a 1 ounce weight reduction or else if one of my fish dies on the way back to the landing i automatically lose the tournament and doesn’t make sense to come back to the weigh in. let me know if i understood that right?

If you have a dead fish, you still weigh in the dead fish and the other fish. You lose the biggest fish however unless the dead fish is the biggest. A 1 ounce loss would be totally un-fair to the people who brought in fully healthy fish in my opinion.

I also think that you should collect cell phone and contact information from each participant and if that person is going to be late for the weigh in then they should call so we know there not fishing while everyone else is weighing in. Back to the dead fish issue if i gut hook a fish and it is a keeper size and i don’t think that he is going to make it do i keep that fish or can i cull it out? or basically is there culling of dead fish? this is where im coming from any way i think that if by all means a fish is dieing you should release a gut hooked fish or accept the consequense and weigh in that dead fish.

I don’t think so because you caught the fish alive didn’t you if he is gut hooked and dieing then you bring him into the weigh in why should i lose my big bass because one of my small ones was gut hooked?

I see what you mean. I’d have to check up on culling dead fish but i think that is very unsportsman like. If you kill a fish you should either bring it back to life and let it go if you think it will be ok but if it dies, its sportsmanlike to bring it in. I think in the bassmasters there are rules against culling dead fish but i don’t know how we could monitor that anyway.

Cade I think that the rules are fine, but I think that everybody needs to be honest also. Like if someone gets a fowl hook set they need to release it because it is illegal. At weigh-in we need to look at each fish to see if it was hooked on the side or something like that. Tell me your opinion on this please.
-Justin

oh yeah you’re right justin. I didn’t think of that one. I hooked one in the side the other day. That could put a hurt on your day if you get a 5 lber and that happens. There are many possible scenarios however where a fish could have a mark on its side that was there before the catch. Thats my only thought. Moderaters and other IDAer’s, please feel free to voice your opinions on this subject.
Thanks

I agree with justin lets say anything behind the gill plate is DQed because if useing a crank theres a chance of getting them in the gill plate as for dead fish i think you have to do your best to get the fish to live! if it’s a keeper you should bring it into the weigh in! doesn’t casey eat bass any way

In bigger pro/am tournaments there are two guys in each boat and each guy signs a slip at the weigh-in verifying that the other guy in the boat caught all of his fish legally. You guys will have to use the “honor system” for many of the questionalble rules and interpretations. This shouldn’t be a problem since we are all sportsmen.

Typically crankbait fish count if they are hooked from the gills forward even if it’s on the outside of the mouth. Only sight-fish must be hooked inside the mouth. In fact, in some tourneys the competitor must show the other guy in the boat before they can even remove the hook.

I see the dead fish issue as an easy one to get around though. Since you are only weighing in 3 fish, just keep fishing until you have 5 keepers since that is your legal possession limit an take your best 3 to the scales. If one of your best 3 is dead, save yourself a penalty and weigh in a living smaller fish. Please don’t throw your dead one back though, I’m sure there will be someone in the area in need of a few fillets… .

Thanks D-nort. My only issue with taking 5 fish is that you might end up killing even more fish then you would have if you would have taken the penalty which isn’t worth the money to me to kill a big bass. We are using coolers as “live wells” so it would be tough to hold 5 fish in there all day and i predict not many people will have aerators. I myself will but don’t know about the others. As far as the crankbait thing goes, i think that would be fine, But what if you are throwing a swim jig… Snagged a 2-1/2 lber right between the eyeballs last week on a swim jig I just think the proposed rules are good except for the dead fish one, we could have a 6 ounce dead fish penalty is what Nick and i came to an agreement on. This is the “average” between the stren penalty of 8 ounces and the BASS penalty of 4 ounces. i think it will be ok. Just don’t kill your bass and nobody has to worry about it.

It would be nice to do a team tournament but i think it would be a little boring because we would only have like 3 teams plus people might be angry with who they are paired up with etc. and it would just turn into a fight. Thats why i thought it would be better to do a single tourney since everybody now has a boat. I hope it all works out!